Antidote
by AuroraEli
Summary: 1x17. Let The Right One In. What happens back at the Salvatore Boarding House after Elena saves Stefan saves Elena from Frederick in the woods? How the scene might have gone – in which Elena shows our boy some much needed love to fight his demons. M for schmexy Stelena steaminess.


_A/N: 1x17. Let The Right One In. What happens back at the Salvatore Boarding House after Elena saves Stefan saves Elena from Frederick in the woods? How the scene might have gone :D In which Elena isn't a judgey little thing, and shows our boy some much needed love to fight his demons. __Stelena one-shot. Reviews and feedback greatly appreciated!_

_Pairing: Stefan/Elena_

_Rating: M for sexual content._

_Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to TVD and its wonderful team._

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The moon has long crested in the sky by the time they get back to the boarding house. They haven't said a word to each other since the woods, afterwards or on the long drive home.

Elena stands at the window, not because there is anything to see through it in the inky void of night, but because she can't bring herself to face it right now: his bedroom, the soft sounds of him moving around the bathroom, the desire to join him, to wash the grime and the blood and more from his body, the sight of it silhouetted against the misted shower glass. She feels she might suffocate in this room under the weight of her own turmoil. She can't face it right now; she can't face him, so she stares at her own reflection in the glass, wondering if she can forgive herself for what she's done tonight.

She touches her neck, lightly fingering the pulse beating under her skin, and all of a sudden she hears his footsteps behind her, heels clicking clinically on the floorboards. She steels herself and raises her eyes to meet his in the windowpane, and the sight of him, washed and clean and boyish and - so uncertain, weakens her resolve. She turns to him, but as soon as her gaze meets his he drops it.

He's holding his shirt from earlier, and the sight of it recalls her to herself. Reminds her: she's no good for him. She turns back to the window, away from him.

"How're you doing?"

"I'm okay." There's a coolness to his voice. "The wounds have mostly healed."

She wants to laugh at the untruth of this, but she feels like humour has been bled from her. "Good."

He reads the rejection in her face, in her bearing, her stiffness - saw it when she turned her face away like she couldn't bear the sight of him. He thumbs the torn, dirty shirt in his hands, not quite sure why he brought it with him, but the reminder of how justified her revulsion is goes a long way towards buffering the pain. It washes over him, but it comes with the relief of knowing that this is the best for her – he's known it from the beginning.

"Elena," he begins, and she turns back to him, momentarily derailing his train of thought.

Her heart is lifting at the sound of her name on his lips, and when her eyes meet his this time, he lets them. And suddenly it dawns on her that he doesn't blame her: it is self-recrimination that is written all over his face. She knows how much he loathes that part of himself, the demon that she saw in the woods, and still the force of it stuns her. When he next speaks, she hears the apology in his voice.

"What you did today, coming to help me – you could have been killed."

"I know." Her voice is soft. She watches him, waiting to see the direction of his thoughts.

"And what I did - I'm sorry that you had to see that." His gaze lowers again, in something that looks unbearably like shame. She can't stand his hurt, wanting desperately to take it away but utterly inadequate to; she's never been good with words except when she's penning them down in secret, and nothing in her seventeen years of life has prepared her to handle this depth of feeling: she tries to explain, but the words tumble clumsily out of her mouth. "I've just never...you were like this other person–"

_A monster._ He reads the meaning behind her words, and he's not surprised, given what she's seen in the woods tonight. Something dark inside of him recognises the strange, awful liberation that accompanies this: if this girl, this brave, beautiful, loving, giving girl, sees him that way, perhaps there is nothing left to prove. Perhaps he can stop fighting, and give himself over to it. To the bloodlust. The thought makes him dizzy with equal parts horror and exhilaration. The exhilaration terrifies him.

But her next words bring him up short.

"And it's my fault. I made you–"

"What? No, no. No." He interrupts her, steps towards her, surprise and pleasure shooting through him when she doesn't back away. He wants her to understand, he needs her to understand this. "No. You were saving my life." She's looking at him with those bottomless brown eyes, and all he can think of in that moment is that she's more precious to him than anything in the world, anything that has ever come before in his long and terrible and godforsaken life. And tonight he has done something – tonight she has _given_ him something – that almost resembles redemption:

"And I was saving yours."

He can't help himself; he reaches towards her, pausing fractionally before he touches her face, seeking permission, and the vulnerability in his gesture almost breaks her heart. He brushes his knuckles against the hair framing her face, and finally his fingers find her skin, running tenderly over the side of her cheek and her ear, and she closes her eyes to savour the sensation as it stirs something deep inside of her.

"There," he whispers, brushing his thumb down over the smooth skin of her cheek and her jaw. "Everything's going to be okay."

Her eyes open at the note of finality in his voice, and she sees more of the same in his shuttered face. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's better this way, Elena." He withdraws his hand.

"This way?"

"You - seeing me for what I am."

Elena grasps his arm as he starts to turn away. "What is it that you think I see, Stefan?"

"Elena, don't."

"Stefan." She steps close and cradles his face between her hands to stop him looking away. "What is it you think I see?"

He looks as though he is summoning everything within himself to meet her gaze; she remembers this Stefan from a night that feels a lifetime ago now, the night she saw the demon in him emerge for the first time. The night he made love to her for the first time. His voice is ragged.

"A monster."

Words fail her in her incredulity, so she does what she did that night: she kisses him, touching her lips sweetly to his, feeling his huff of breath and his body along hers. When she pulls away his eyes are squeezed tightly shut, and the skin underneath them is changing. Her fingertips roam over his eyelids and face; she marvels at the transformation as the veins beneath his eyes swell and darken and, when he opens his eyes, green is swallowed up into red. She studies him, and there is no fear in her, only desire.

His head is pounding, his ears ringing with the rhythm of her heartbeat, and the pulse at her throat is inches from his reach, her skin soft and fragile. He doesn't trust himself; he never does. But she touches her fingers to his lips, strokes her hands down his neck and chest and abdomen, and her touch holds the hunger at bay – and fills his mind with an altogether different kind of hunger.

"Kiss me."

With a sound eloquent of his pain he obeys her, gathering her to him, taking her mouth with the passion he keeps so tightly leashed, and then opening it with his own. She offers herself to him, fitting herself against his body, wrapping arms around his shoulders and then, when he lifts her in his arms, legs around his hips, as though giving him leave to absorb her into himself as a balm.

He walks her over to the bed and tears his mouth from hers. He leans his forehead against hers and breathes, harshly, "How can you want me?"

She presses kisses along the sharp line of his jaw, at the corner of his beautiful mouth, feeling the strong arms beneath her that would never let her fall, feeling the hardness of his body between her arms and legs and against her chest and belly, and wonders if he might not be a little insane.

So she asks him. "Are you insane?"

His muffled laugh warms her heart, and it spreads deep down in her belly as he places her on the sheets and lays her down. She reaches for him, she can't stop touching his face.

"You saved me tonight," she says. He reaches for her hands as if he might pull them away, and she tightens her grip, wanting him to hear. "You saved me."

He is nuzzling the side of her neck, and she wonders vaguely if she ought to feel afraid. Then he nips the skin of her shoulder, and her musing is forgotten in a rush of pleasure. "You saved _me_," he murmurs.

"No," she says, fiercely. She places her hands on his chest and he allows himself to be pushed inches from her, but no more. "Do you know what I was doing tonight, Stefan? In the woods, on the drive back, while you were in the shower? I was hating myself. Telling myself I was no good for you. Sound familiar?"

He tips her chin up, and her bravado falters under his scrutiny. "Why?"

"Because," she says, suddenly uncertain – she isn't one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and her shame nearly rivals his. But she needs to tell him. "Because I was selfish, Stefan. You wanted me to run. You were ready to die rather than take my blood. You didn't want it to turn you into - into what it did."

"Elena–"

"You say I saved you, but what does that mean to you? You say I saved you, Stefan, but at what cost? You didn't want to be saved, did you?" She raises her eyes to his, and they are swimming with guilt, and her voice has diminished to a whisper. "But I couldn't let you go."

He is absolutely still as he gazes at her, and she thinks the warmth in his eyes will surely set her ablaze. Slowly, so slowly, he lowers his head and presses his lips to hers, and she realizes that he is mirroring her response from before. Her eyes squeeze shut, just like his did, and she understands why now: the forgiveness, the absolution in the gesture sweeps everything away but the agonising sweetness of being unconditionally accepted, unconditionally wanted. She knows that he understands, too.

And suddenly they are pulling at clothing, throwing back sheets, tugging teeth on skin, his hand fisted in her hair holding her head for his kiss; her fingernails raking across his back opening marks which heal before his next breath. He kisses a path down her body, and she rises and falls to the rhythm of his ministrations, giving herself up to him as he gives of himself to her.

When he enters her it is not with gentleness; he needs her too much, is too stunned by her presence in his arms after what she's witnessed, by the courage of her, by her eagerness to save him from himself. She doesn't want it any other way. She incites him and soothes him all at once, each arch of her back and push of her hips inviting him to lose himself in her. She is lost in the velvet of his voice and the drive of his body into hers. She doesn't think he is fully conscious of his whispered words of praise and desperation, but she hears every confession, every apology, every plea, every promise. As she teeters on the edge she wonders how she will ever make him realise that none of it is necessary, none of it, but then the world starts to unravel behind her eyelids, and she has no more words but his name.

Stefan holds her body to his in the aftermath. He is too sated to move, to think, to hunger.

He kisses her forehead, breathing in the scent of her hair. "Go to sleep," he whispers.

Snug in his arms, she is already halfway there, but rouses herself enough to sleepily ask, "You'll be here when I wake up?"

And her trust is a self-fulfilling prophecy: it gives him the strength he needs to live up to it. "I'll be here. As long as I have you." She is already asleep on his chest. He doesn't know if she's heard him. He doesn't think he's ever made a promise he meant more in his life.

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